TERESA CLEMENTS, RN: Who or what helps you when you face serious challenges in your life?

CURTIS NELSON: I always get comfort from Audrey, my wife.

CLEMENTS: Of 61 years.

CURTIS NELSON: Yes, of 61 years, yes. And then our pastors.

CLEMENTS: So your faith is important?

NELSON: Yes, very important.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: Conversations like this at Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, Wisconsin, are what set off the nationwide outcry over the so-called “death panels.” This is Curtis Nelson, connected to a dialysis machine, with his wife Audrey and his son Dennis. Teresa Clements is a nurse guiding the discussion.

CLEMENTS: With your particular illnesses, and you’ve got the multiple myeloma, the heart failure, and now the kidney disease, it’s difficult to predict when a complication can occur, and it can happen suddenly, and you might not be able or aware to make those decisions.

SEVERSON: These end-of-life conversations began in the 1980s at the urging of the hospital’s medical ethicist, Bernard Hammes. He had grown alarmed after listening to staff doctors distressed about how to treat incapacitated terminally ill patients.

BERNARD HAMMES (Clinical Ethicist, Gundersen Lutheran Health System): What does the patient want me to do? The patient now is too sick to ask, the family, when we ask the family, had no idea what the patient would or would not want, and so we were really faced with this moral or ethical dilemma.

SEVERSON: And when the doctors don’t know what the patient or the family wants, Hammes says there’s only one thing to do.

HAMMES: Here, anywhere in the world quite honestly, when you have a patient coming into a hospital who’s very ill, maybe dying if we don’t treat them, our assumption is that treating, attempting to prolong life is the right thing to do. And that, indeed, from an ethical, professional perspective is the right thing to do, but is it what the patient would want?

CLEMENTS: You have a serious complication from your kidney disease, you have a good chance of living through the complication, but it’s expected you will never be able to either walk or talk or both, and you would require 24-hour nursing care. You would choose the following: to continue all treatment because living as long as possible is most important; you would stop all efforts, including dialysis to keep you alive because your quality of life is more important than your quantity; or you are not sure.

NELSON: That would be terrible. I wouldn’t want to have that.

CLEMENTS:So to stop all efforts then.

NELSON: Yes, if I got into a position like that, yes.

SEVERSON: In La Crosse, Wisconsin, 96 percent of the patients who die have gone through these advance directive discussions and designated how they would prefer to spend their last days.

HAMMES (lecturing): This program is not trying to talk people out of treatment. This program is trying to help patients make informed decisions so that we know what they would want even in a crisis, and we can deliver the services that match their preferences.

SEVERSON:The program has been so successful representatives from around the country now attend seminars at Gundersen Lutheran. The success is due, in part, to the backing of the Catholic and Lutheran churches. A similar program is underway in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is supported by the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, Pastor Leith Anderson of the Wooddale Church outside Minneapolis. He says he witnessed too many families going through emotional turmoil when their loved one was dying.

REV. LEITH ANDERSON (President, National Association of Evangelicals): For the family, that there are processes in place is wonderfully helpful because often children and spouses, they’re frightened, they don’t want to make a mistake, they don’t want to give up too soon, they don’t want to hold on too long, and if it’s been discussed, and especially if it’s been documented in writing, that is really a gift to family.

SEVERSON: Pastor Anderson says both he and his wife have filled out advance directives, and he’s encouraged members of his congregation to do the same. The directives, he says, are biblically based, and he uses as an example the story of Jacob when he knows he is about to die.

ANDERSON: And it tells about him bringing all of his sons around him, and he gave a prepared statement to every one of them, and it was different for each one. But the Bible line in Genesis 49 says that he gave instructions. Now that’s marvelous. Here long ago was a man who knew he was going to die and gave final instructions.

SEVERSON: Advance directives today detail individual treatment, assign power of attorney, and are available electronically. Hammes says they are not “death panels,” a description he says is “simply a lie.” He says some people choose to stay alive with any technology medical science can offer. A majority request less invasive treatments. Some, because of their religious views, are ready to meet their maker.

CLEMENTS: If those hopes don’t come true, what else would you hope for, Curtis?

NELSON: That the good Lord says I can come in.

CLEMENTS: That the Lord says you can come in?

NELSON: Yeah.

SEVERSON: The hospital now trains social workers, nurses, and pastors to conduct these discussions. Bernard Hammes has filled out his own.

HAMMES: I’m not making a judgment for you or for anyone else, but I think we live in a world in which we have to share resources. That’s a spiritual value for me. So if I receive medical care, and it reaches a certain stage, and it’s not going to change the outcome for me, but a lot more money could be spent, I would say, you know, the cost of this care has reached a point that I no longer feel is ethical, because other people don’t even have basic needs being met.

SEVERSON: Although it wasn’t the original intent of Gundersen’s advance health-care planning program, there has been an additional benefit. It saves money. Typically, hospital costs for a patient’s last 6 months of life nationwide average about $31,500. At some hospitals it’s twice that amount or more. At Gundersen Lutheran it’s $22,000 because the patient spends fewer days in the hospital.

HAMMES: Where would you rather spend your time if you had two years left to live, in the hospital going through tests and procedures? We’re putting many, many patients in this country through a lot of additional suffering and expense, some of which they’re going to have to pay for. It’s the fourth most frequent reason for families to go bankrupt.

DR. GREG THOMPSON: Many of those patients who have the underlying terminal disease don’t even come to the intensive unit, because they have already decided that at this point in their life that’s not the level of care that they want. They want care, but not the critical care that they would receive in a critical care unit.

ANDERSON: I think that there’s a growing number of people who do not want to have a lot of tubes connected to them. I would say that increasingly I am hearing people say, “I want to die at home.” So they’re making a choice that dignity is more important than more days.

CLEMENTS: Any other hopes for you guys?

DENNIS NELSON: Oh, I would hope that he would get off from this, and if it is eventually going to happen, that it wouldn’t be a long, drawn out process in passing so.

CURTIS NELSON: That’s the biggest thing. I don’t want it to have it dragged out.

TERESA NELSON: So this is a good conversation to have.

SEVERSON: In these discussions, talk is about practical things but often turns deeply personal.

HAMMES: People don’t like talking about death. It’s a taboo in our society. This is a very intimate conversation. When you talk about these issues, you’re really talking, if you will, about the meaning of life, about your religious beliefs and faith, and ultimately about who you are, and that’s a little frightening to most of us.

SEVERSON: At the end of these discussions, Hammes says he often hears the same thing from the nurses and facilitators who conduct them.

HAMMES: What they will report to me is that what they experienced was a sacred space. What happens in families when they really get into the meaning of this conversation is they tell each other how important they are to each other.

SEVERSON: The idea of advance directives appears to be gaining traction. Intimate discussions about the end of life are now starting to take place in hospitals around the country.

/wnet/religionandethics/files/2011/10/thumb01-advancedirectives.jpgIn La Crosse, Wisconsin, 96 percent of all adults die with a completed advance directive. The directives are often based on end-of-life conversations that reflect a patient’s spiritual and ethical values.

]]>Advance directives respect familial relationships, spiritual values, and individual choices, says the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

/wnet/religionandethics/files/2011/10/thumb01-leithanderson.jpgAdvance directives respect familial relationships, spiritual values, and individual choices, says the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

]]>BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) represents 60 Protestant denominations made up of 45 thousand churches with 30 million members. Early this month, the NAE’s president, The Reverend Ted Haggard, had to step aside because of a sex and drug scandal. His interim successor is The Reverend Leith Anderson, pastor of the 5000-member Wooddale Church outside Minneapolis. Anderson insists the Haggard tragedy will have no effect on the health of the NAE, which he described to Fred de Sam Lazaro as a group that is increasingly diverse.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Leith Anderson leads a megachurch, just as his predecessor at the National Association of Evangelicals did. But that’s where a lot of the similarities end. Colorado-based Ted Haggard was politically active and until his resignation a prominent voice behind that state’s recent ballot measure to ban same sex marriage.

Rev. LEITH ANDERSON (Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, MN, speaking at church service): I invite you to believe in Jesus who died on the cross to pay for your sins.

DE SAM LAZARO: Anderson seems comfortable with the relative anonymity at the 5000-member church in suburban Minneapolis he’s led since 1977.

Rev. ANDERSON: I certainly have no obligation to continue his or anyone else’s agenda. I do think that Ted Haggard was particularly involved in political issues in Colorado, which are not always the same political issues elsewhere. I think that we need to again recognize that America is a varied and diverse place.

DE SAM LAZARO: He says that diversity that was evident in the way evangelicals voted in the recent elections.

Rev. ANDERSON: One of the numbers that I read in the press was an estimate that one-third of evangelicals voted as Democrats and two-thirds voted as Independents or Republicans. If that number is correct that would show a two-to-one diversity, at least in terms of blue and red. There are certainly many evangelicals who hold conservative-right politics, but there are many who do not. I think in the past there has been a misperception that the group is something of a monolith in terms of race and politics and a multitude of other areas, where individuals have been perceived as the spokespersons for many when in fact they may be the spokespersons only for some.

DE SAM LAZARO: On the political front, Anderson says evangelicals have stuck solidly together in opposing legalized abortion. But there are fractures on other issues, notably global warming. Anderson is among a group of leaders signing on to the Evangelical Climate Initiative. The document calls for urgent action to curb climate change that it says is caused by human activities.

Rev. ANDERSON: The purpose was to put climate concerns, what we would call creation-care issues, on the evangelical agenda, and I think that was highly successful. So it has significantly come into evangelical conversation.

DE SAM LAZARO: But many leading evangelical pastors, along with the Bush administration, insist there’s no scientific consensus on global warming. Anderson says it’s no surprise that the wrenching debates in broader society have spilled into the evangelical community.

Rev. ANDERSON: We have had growing polarization in America and siloing. So it’s everywhere. If you look at your radio dial, we are narrow casting more than broadcasting. And within our culture, we are people shouting in a louder and louder voice to fewer and fewer people. And that is distressing to me, because I prefer that we have unity at least on some significant issues. Evangelicals are not exempt from the polarization and fracturing that is happening in the rest of society.

I think that around the world there is a great deal of fear. I think war and terrorism and other issues have made people frightened and that has often driven them back to their social, ethnic and religious roots. And that has distanced people more than it has brought them together. What I would desire and hope for is that we would find our common ground, be able to be respectful of our differences, and be able to fairly hear one another in terms of what are our beliefs, and persuasively speak on behalf of our beliefs.

DE SAM LAZARO: This isn’t the first the 62-year-old Anderson will head the National Association of Evangelicals. A few years ago, amid a financial crisis, he took over for two years. This time he says he’ll provide continuity until the group’s board finds a new president.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Minneapolis.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/files/2006/11/thumb02-leith-anderson-profile.jpgThe outspoken president of the National Association of Evangelicals Ted Haggard resigned because of a sex and drug scandal. His interim successor, Rev. Leith Anderson, insists the resignation will have no effect on the health of the NAE, which he describes as a group that is increasingly diverse.

]]>Read more of Fred De Sam Lazaro’s November 14, 2006 interview in Minnesota with Leith Anderson, interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals:

Q: Why did you agree to take on for the second time the mantle of leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals?

A: I was not surprised to be asked, because I served as an interim president concluding in March of 2003, so I had experience. I’m well acquainted with the evangelical community and known by many in the evangelical community, so it was time to step up and take a responsibility that I think that I am adequately equipped to do.

Q: What is your biggest challenge, your biggest responsibility right at the moment?

A: Well, the National Association of Evangelicals is an organization that is 60-some years old, has about 60 member denominations as well as individual churches, and a constituency that is variously numbered in the tens of millions, so the responsibility is to give overall leadership, to be a spokeperson on behalf of this group and to provide continuity and stability at a time when there has been less than best press.

Q: What do you think are some of the most misunderstood things about evangelicals in the broader media and in the general public?

A: In the media I think there has been a growing understanding over the last 10 years, at least in my experience with the press, in the broad diversity among evangelicals. I think in the past there has been a misperception that the group is something of a monolith in terms of race and politics and a multitude of other areas where individuals have been perceived as the spokepersons for many when in fact they may be the spokespersons only for some. The integrating motif of evangelicals is a belief in the Bible and the expectation of having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, so those are spiritual values, and beyond that the diversity comes in race and background and politics and a whole array of differences.

Q: Have “evangelical” and “Christian right” come to be synonymous in America today?

A: I think that is the misperception of some, and perhaps that’s because those voices have been largely heard. I don’t know whether this is a correct statistic or not, but following the last general election one of the numbers that I read in the press was an estimate that one-third of evangelicals voted as Democrats and two-thirds voted as independents or Republicans. If that number is correct, that would show a two-to-one diversity at least in terms of blue and red. There are certainly many evangelicals who hold conservative right politics, but there are many who do not.

Q: Was that statistic a consistent reflection, or was it a quirk driven by the politics of the moment?

A: I think that has shifted. Historically, evangelicals have been strong in the South, and the South was historically Democratic. The evangelicalism of the South has continued to remain strong. The politics of the South switched to become far more Republican, and therefore evangelicals were more voting Republican. However, the evangelical community includes broadly the African American church, many of whom have historically voted in the Democratic camp, so it depends on which segment you’re talking about. There are regional differences, there are denominational differences, and there are racial differences.

Q: What keeps the evangelical community together?

A: Again, the integrating motif, what keeps the community together is belief in the Bible, taking it seriously, and belief in requiring a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, so it is experiential. In terms of the Bible, that is the core of truth; in terms of faith it is experiential faith.

Q: A week after the national midterm elections that so significantly changed our government, what are your reflections as an evangelical taking over a national evangelical organization? What do you think happened in the election?

A: My take is that politics are extremely complex; they are driven by current issues; they are generally local. I think it was Tip O’Neill who said all politics are local. In this election it appears that Washington significantly affected local outcome, and that relates to the war in Iraq, it relates to dissatisfaction with incumbents. We know that frequently incumbents in Congress lose at the midterm election of the second term of a president, so there were multiple factors all coming together in the same election, and evangelicals are part of the broader community, and as part of the broader community [they] are participants in the broader decisions that are being made.

Q: Your predecessor Ted Haggard was fairly visible in a political sense – associated with the White House, politically outspoken. How does your leadership style compare with his?

A: Well, I think the comparison is to be made by others, not to be made by me. Interestingly, there was a previous president of the National Association of Evangelicals who was sometimes criticized for too close an alignment with the Clinton administration and participating in Clinton admin activities, so the criticism is not new, and individuals are not always speaking on behalf of the broader constituency. They are speaking as individuals.

Q: But Haggard was at the helm of a national organization. Are you politically involved, and do you intend to be outspoken on social issues that have been important to evangelical Christians?

A: There are some political issues on which I have and will speak, although I do not see myself as some one who succumbs to Potomac fever or largely engages in that. I’m the pastor of a local church, and in our local church people in the congregation have run for office and been elected, but we don’t talk about that within the life of the congregation.

Q: What are the issues that most concern you, that you think evangelicals ought to be involved with?

A: I can tell you issues that I’m personally concerned about, and of course I would extend that to other evangelicals and wish that they would share those concerns. I’m concerned for the poor. I’m concerned for justice for the disenfranchised. I have a great concern and the church of which I am a part is deeply involved in the HIV/AIDS issues in Africa and concerned that we be responsible in providing aid and sustenance and encouragement and everything that we can possibly do. I do share certain aspects of the social agenda in terms of being pro-life, and while not all evangelicals would share that that would be pretty broad-based within the evangelical community — a desire to be a protector of the unborn.

Q: How do you come down on the teaching of intelligent design?

A: Well, I’m not an expert on that, so as a lay person I certainly am aware of intelligent design, and because I am a believer in God and believe that God is ultimately behind all that exists, of course I believe in intelligent design, and therefore I think it’s a correct understanding of reality.

Q: So you think it ought to be taught alongside evolution in our schools?

A: It’s always a difficult question of what should be taught in schools. There are some ways in which you would prefer that neither be taught in schools and that the choices be made within the church and other communities in terms of what is taught. I am certainly wide open to diverse opinions being taught within appropriate classrooms in schools and therefore think that there is a place for the teaching of intelligent design.

Q: Alongside evolution in the science class?

A: I certainly do think that an educated person today needs to understand what all the arguments are for evolution, so it is appropriate within education that evolution be taught as one alternative to a diverse opinion of many people of how reality has come to be.

Q: Is it your position that this should be taught within a science curriculum or in a broader philosophical context?

A: It’s interesting that you say, should this be taught in the science class and should this be taught in the philosophy class, because I reflect back on my own education in public schools, and I don’t always recall who is my science teacher and who is my history teacher, so where it’s taught probably is dicing it down to a fine line, and if it is an acceptable alternative that it be taught in a different classroom, I’m okay with that.

Q: Why do you think evangelical activism on HIV/AIDS, on working for peace in the Sudan doesn’t get headlines? Why do people associate evangelicals only with social issues in North America rather than broader international social justice issues that so many evangelicals are engaged in?

A: Historically evangelicals have been broadly involved in social issues. There’s a new film coming out in January about William Wilberforce who was the British minister of Parliament who advocated for the eradication of slavery within the British Empire, and that will be broadly embraced in the evangelical community Today evangelicals have been significantly involved in the eradication of sex trafficking around the world, in the HIV/AIDS issue, poverty, war. Why are evangelicals not known for those things? I suppose it’s because the press and the political sector are not greatly engaged in those issues, and so people become known for how they relate to whatever is the current political headline. Not that those things are not important. They are also important, but we need to be engaged in justice and good within the world on a broad base.

Q: Do you intend to steer more of a course that goes in that broader direction than your predecessor? Ted Haggard was known for speaking out on issues like the gay marriage amendment in Colorado and others, or will we be hearing differently from you on some of these issues?

A: I certainly have no obligation to continue his or anyone else’s agenda. I do think that Ted Haggard was particularly involved in political issues in Colorado, which are not always the same political issues elsewhere. As an interesting example, the Colorado Springs Gazette and Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post carried a multitude of front-page articles about what happened with him in the beginning of November and his political views and his fall from position. I had a conversation with a reporter from the Colorado Springs Gazette who said they had done 22 major articles. I live in Minnesota, where the Minneapolis Star Tribune did 8 column inches on page A-10 next to a furnace ad, so it was not as big an issue here as his political opinions were in Colorado. I think we need to, again, recognize that America is a varied and diverse place, so am I going to perpetuate the issues of Colorado? I’m not.

Q: Do you just not share them as a priority, or do you think your congregants are not as concerned about some of these issues as Ted Haggard’s might have been?

A: I think that the political issues vary by part of the country and day of the week. I do think that the people that are part of Wooddale Church where I am the pastor share probably the same concerns as people in congregations elsewhere. I would tend to take an approach that would say, here is what the Bible teaches, and as an individual Christian you have a responsibility to engage in the political and the social process. But it is clearly your choice to make. It is not my responsibility to dictate to you how you should vote or what you should do.

Q: What do you sense are the main concerns of your congregants in Minnesota, in the upper Midwest? Were you to name two or three or four, what would those be?

A: I’m not sure I’ve ever thought through what the three or four may be. The honest reality is that for most people they are first concerned about themselves and their family and their immediate needs and then how that impacts them. So if they are unable to get employment or health insurance and their children thereby suffer, then they become deeply engaged in those particular issues. Beyond that, surely we become concerned about broad social and moral issues. The issue of abortion and being for protection of the life of the unborn is a top priority among evangelicals, and that has been a galvanizing force politically, so there have been evangelicals who have actually disagreed with many other political positions but voted for candidates with the hope that they would significantly reduce abortion in America. It may well be that at the point that that is either resolved or there is a complete deadlock over the abortion issue, that other issues will rise to the surface and you will see more of a fracturing of the evangelical community in terms of how voting is done because of which other issues are then chosen.

Q: You gained some notoriety coming out in favor of an evangelical environmental initiative, acknowledging that we face global warming. Is that one of those issues which is potentially a fracturing issue?

A: The evangelical climate initiative, which had 86 signatories (in alphabetical order, so with Anderson I was at the top of the list), had as a priority to put climate concerns, or as we would sometimes say creation care issues, on the evangelical agenda. I think that effort was highly successful, so it has significantly come into evangelical conversation — not that it hasn’t been there for a long time, but it became broader and better understood, and I think clearly the direction is that evangelicals are engaging in this issue. A recent Newsweek poll reported that a high percentage of evangelicals are significantly concerned about climate care and related matters, and it makes sense, because as evangelicals we say that we believe the Bible, we take the Bible seriously, the Bible is our guide for faith and practice, and the Bible says that God is the creator of the universe and that we are to be stewards of that which we have on his behalf. So of course we would be concerned about the climate.

Q: The environment has been a polarizing issue in world of politics, with the US backing out of the Kyoto treaty with the assent of Bush administration. Would you support the US becoming a signatory to the Kyoto protocols?

A: I’m not well enough informed to be an expert to address the Kyoto protocols. Certainly the US needs to be recognized as a leader in the world, and if we are to be a leader in terms of economics and culture and other ways, then I think we should also be a leader in terms of taking care of what God has created.

Q: What are your reflections on what has happened since the midterm elections? Do you see the evangelical movement differently? Do you see it expressing itself differently, coming to some point in a cycle of growth? Do you perhaps sense an historic landmark that the election brought into higher relief?

A: It’s always difficulty to get a broad perspective on short notice. I read a quote recently that was attributed to Chou En Lai. I am not sure if he was the one who actually spoke it. Someone asked him what he thought of the French Revolution, and his answer was, “It’s too soon to tell.” We have to be cautious that we don’t make an immediate evaluation of what may be, in fact, inconsequential. But let me give you what may be a long answer to the question. Evangelicals were marginalized in the early part of the 20th century and the middle part of the 20th century. It dates back to the Scopes Trial, to the ascendancy of liberal Christianity in North America, and a multitude of other factors, but I think it’s safe to say that in that marginalization evangelicals spoke to one another but were not largely heard by the mainstream. That started to change around 1950 and was most centered in Billy Graham, who was widely known and an evangelical. And then in 1976 with Jimmy Carter’s election to the White House and Time magazine declaring the year of the evangelical, evangelicals came more and more into positions of influence and mainstream in America with little experience, often not knowing how to speak to the mainstream or to adequately communicate ideas, because evangelicals had been marginalized, and those that are on the margins of society frequently don’t know how to deal with the center of society. In the last 20 years especially, evangelicals being in the mainstream have been figuring this out and learning how to do it. There is now greater experience and I hope a maturity in the movement that will be reflective and responsive and will both advance the cause of Jesus Christ and be beneficial to society.

Q: Did the election suggest potential fractures within evangelicalism, and how injurious might they be? Are there any schisms in the making?

A: In my opinion, within recent years we have had growing polarization in America and siloing, so it’s everywhere. If you look at your radio dial, we are narrowingcasting more than broadcasting, and within our culture we are shouting in a louder and louder voice to fewer and fewer people. And that’s distressing to me, because I prefer that we have unity on at least some significant issues. Evangelicals are not exempt from the polarization and fracturing that has happened to the rest of the society, and, yes, we are suffering from that as well, and we have different voices and divergence. And that’s not widely understood by people who are not evangelicals. They tend to understand that in their arena but don’t understand it in other arenas, and that would probably be typical of us all. So, yes, there is fracture.

Q: Your organization is one effort to keep the cohesion, and you spoke of integrating motifs. In the secular political arena, where do you see trends leading, particularly in the 2008 political cycle, which has already begun? What do you see as you look ahead?

A: On an immediate basis what I see is that there is going to be an effort initially following this election for people to communicate with each other and to find common ground. I think that that is very good and a hopeful sign. Whether that will last very long is probably anybody’s guess, and the 2008 election is so far off it is difficult to predict. What I anticipate is that evangelicals will increasingly will go to what is our central core message, and our central core message is belief in the Bible and commitment to Jesus Christ, and that other matters that have too much been perceived as central will be come secondary or peripheral to who we centrally are.

Q: Do you see any kind of humanizing force or do you sense any greater push toward ecumenism in America among religious leaders than in the recent past?

A: It’s difficult to generalize, but, to the contrary, I think that around the world there is a great deal of fear. I think war and terrorism and other issues have made people frightened, and that has often driven them back to their social ethnic and religious roots, and that has distanced people more than it has brought them together. What I would desire and hope for is that we would find our common ground, be able to be respectful of our differences and be able to fairly hear one another in terms of what are our beliefs and persuasively speak on behalf of our beliefs.

Q: How would you describe yourself?

A: I am the son of an immigrant from Europe. I grew up in metropolitan New York City and northern New Jersey, was educated in public schools there, went to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, graduate school in Colorado and [got] a doctorate in California. For 30 years I have been senior pastor of Wooddale Church in suburban Eden Prairie, and most of all what I am is a pastor in terms of what I do professionally.

Q: Why did you settle in Minnesota?

A: I love Minnesota. Minnesota represents to me the best of America in terms of people being kind to each other and gracious and having variety and being welcoming. Minnesota is where we have the first or second longest life expectancy, the lowest unemployment, the greatest voter turnout. I think the statistics indicate we have had more immigrants from Africa in the last 5 or 10 years than the rest of America combined together. Minnesota is a wonderful place.

Q: There is also a seeming political schizophrenia in Minnesota, the state of Senator Paul Wellstone and Governor Jesse Ventura, of the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison, and Michele Bachman, a very outspoken evangelical Christian Republican candidate who fits the classic stereotype that you think mischaracterizes evangelicals. What do you think it says, the election of both Ellison and Bachman to Congress?

A: I think that reflects what is happening in America, that we have a growing Muslim population, so you would expect that at some point there would be a Muslim elected to Congress. We have many people who are very conservative in terms of their beliefs and their commitments, and so you would expect that in their district they would elect someone who would reflect their positions.

Q: Living side by side.

A Yes, but of course they are from very different congressional districts. People elect those that reflect their points of view and who they are.

Read more of Fred De Sam Lazaro’s interview in Minnesota with Leith Anderson, interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/files/2013/05/thumb01-leith-anderson-profile.jpg